This invention concerns gauge parts for tufting machines, and more particularly to a hook or looper having a spring clip mounted thereon for cooperation with the bill thereof for the selective formation of cut or loop pile.
It is known in the art to use a hook or looper having a spring clip mounted thereon. A part of the clip bears on the bill of the hook or looper adjacent the free end thereof in the production of tufted fabrics having both cut and loop pile. The loop of yarn seized by the hook or looper from the reciprocating needle selectively is retained on the looper by the clip during subsequent reciprocation of the needle and moves rearwardly of the looper bill eventually to be cut by an oscillating knife cooperable therewith to form cut pile or is released from the looper by displacement of the clip by virtue of the tension in the yarn thus to form loop pile, according to specific requirements.
In conventional loopers having spring clips mounted thereon the clip is formed from flat spring steel strip cut to an appropriate shape and secured to a face of the looper. Adjacent its remote end the clip is formed with a generally triangular enlargement of which the apex bears on the looper bill, and such clip is creased in register with a line of symmetry of the enlargement which passes through the apex thereof, the crease extending towards the plane of that face of the looper to which the clip is secured. The construction is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,084,645 together with its application in forming cut and loop stitches.
In the context of the loop forming instrumentalities of fine gauge tufting machine, that is to say tufting machines for forming 1/10th inch guage or finer fabrics, the spacing between adjacent like components is limited, and often determines the minimum gauge of the machine.
in the case of loopers having spring clips applied thereto, the presence of the spring clip limits the space available for the knife which cooperates with the next adjacent looper, and thus determines the minimum spacing of the loopers, and hence the gauge of the machine.